Android Internet APN setup app

A simple Android app to set giffgaff's APN and enable Internet support. It can also help get mms working.

Important note: in Android 4.03 Google removed the WRITE_APN permission needed to automatically set APNs. The app will fall back to an assisted cut&paste mode to help with manual setup, which should be more reliable than fully manual setup. The tools app will still work as normal in these Android versions.

To Install

If you have WiFi or other Internet access on the phone, the app is available on the Market, search for giffgaff in the Market app, direct linkmarket://details?id=com.paulshirley.android.giffgaffsetapn. Note: if you installed a previous version manually, uninstall it before attempting to install from the market.

If you have internet access on the phone but no Market access, download direct from my homepage:

You will find 2 new apps in the apps draw, "giffgaffAPN" is the APN installer, "giffgaff tools" is a convenience shortcut to the tools submenu for your home screen.

Run the giffgaffAPN app:

Read the first time message then press 'Continue'

You'll see 4 numbered buttons:

simple checklist troubleshooting advice for common problems, this is automatically invoked after adding giffgaff settings. I strongly advise you to read it.

will create APNs for Internet and MMS. It will delete APN's from the O2 network and any MVNO on the O2 network, on some Android revisions this is needed for working MMS. On all Android revisions this seems needed for reliable mms.

opens an advanced menu where you can control proxy, split APN and APN erase settings. You can also delete or rebuild a corrupted APN list directly from here.

calls up a simple tools menu. You can also run this from the giffgaff tools icon in the app draw or drop an app icon onto a homescreen.

Button 2 is the preferred option but will prevent you using O2 or Tesco SIM's in the phone. You can restore the O2 settings from the Advanced Menu if necessary. Use advanced mode if you need to retain these conflicting settings.

On Android 4.03+ button 3 will be disabled and button 2 will start assisted manual setup.

Rooted device users

With the root build

Use the 'install to system' option then reboot your phone. The app will then be able to alter APN's even on Android 4 and higher. If you aren't using ICS or higher there is no advantage to doing this. NOTE this can damage your phone

With any build

In any root enabled file app or terminal window copy the apk file to /system/app then reboot.

After the system install Google Market/Play updates should work as normal. If you need to uninstall the app I strongly recommend you uninstall the system copy using the apps Advanced menu before uninstalling.

IMPORTANT: do not repeatedly use the 'install to system' button without rebooting. Bad things can happen.

When to install/run

The app can be installed at any time. Ideally you should install the app before switching from another mobile provider, while you still have internet access if you have no WiFi.

It can be run before or after switching to giffgaff but may need to manually select the giffgaff APN if done before. It's safe to run it again after switching to giffgaff and probably a good idea.

There's no need to keep the app after running it succesfully. That said its very small and the tools menu can be useful.

Help: I've run the app and my Internet still doesn't work

Have you activated yet? The app will not activate your account for you and Internet is barred till you activate

Check that data is not disabled under 'Menu/Wireless & networks/Mobile Networks/"

Check you aren't in Airplane mode

Reset the wireless stack by switching in then out of Airplane mode (hold Power till a menu appears)

Run the app and select the 'remove other O2' button

A few SIMS will fail to release the initial internet bar after activation, contact an agent for help if none of the above helps

MMS support

This app installs the access settings needed for MMS, can remove one common problem with MMS but does not claim to fix all MMS problems.

You may also need to:

enable internet data (in Mobile network settings, Data enabled)

have credit to send MMS - 16p/MMS and MMS is not included in any goodybag

set your MMS apps maximum message size to 300K

disable MMS autoretrieve in your SMS/MMS app

spoof your MMS User Agent - Nokia N95 is a good choice, you may need a modified MMS app or a 3rd party app (Handcent or Chomp recommended) and may need a rooted phone.

you may need to send an MMS to yourself to kickstart the service

There are several threads on the forums covering Android MMS issues, please use them instead of this thread for help.

Notes

By default this creates dual APN's because a couple of phones require that and it seems to work with all phones. Since one of those phones (ZTE Blade) formed 40% of all app installs at the time of writing that's unlikely to change. If you set a single APN in the advanced options remember to test that mms works.

The app does not set all the APN fields in more recent versions of Android. While the defaults should just work you may get improvements by manually editing the APN. In particular I don't set the "APN Type" field, adding 'default,supl' may improve location support. Feedback welcome. app version 1.5 and later have advanced options for some of this.

[Edit]1.71

fixed lots of rotation bugs, shouldn't crash as much when you rotate the phone

rotate no longer causes the keyboard helper to restart or lose sync with HUD

attempt to make enabling the keyboard helper work better, not 100% fixed

removed root options, seems to break some devices. Either manually copy any giffgaffAPN apk to /system/app or use Titanium Backup Pro to make it a system app. Existing root installs should remain enabled after updating.

Had a go. I like it! Works very well and is nice visually. I love the 'toast' notifcation at the end saying 'giffgaffed'! That's brilliant. I remember when I was coding how much creating a 'toast' made me smile like it was an achievement...

Anyways, good job on the .apk, now we need to get someone to push this into the Market!

Re: Android APN setup app [updated to v1.1]

• You'll need to plug in your USB.• Now when prompted, pull the top-bar down and select USB Connected.• Then when it loads, hit the Turn On USB button.• Once it's done you'll either get a window open on your computer of the drive (something like D:\). If not, go to My Computer and do it manually.• Copy the file from your PC to that drive (your phone).• On your phone, hit the Turn Off USB and once it's back to asking if you want to Turn On USB, unplug your phone.• Use a file manager like OI File Manager, ASTRO File Manager or Linda File Manager. Then direct yourself to the root of your SD Card.• Now select the .apk. When you go to install you may get a popup exclaiming that for security reasons the app can't be installed. Just click the OK (or whatever) button and then make sure Apps from Unknown Sources is ticked. Then try again.• Then install the app properly. Once it's done, open it!• Finally, run the app by pressing the button (after reading it of course) and then choosing to either install the APN or delete old APNs and install this APN.• You should be all giffgaffed with the app on your phone incase something goes wrong!